——!

That is the world. Who would have dreamt that Alderman——was odd, or singular, or eccentric, had he kept his money, instead of giving it to the distressed?

But the kind-hearted old man thirsted for reputation as an ornithologist. Well, and in good sooth, he had some solid claim to it. Birds were his passion; and you seldom met any one who knew so much about them. I know not whether his relatives keep the book of drawings which the good man showed to me, as he had showed it to hundreds, with so much innocent pride;—taking care to relate how it had been begun when he was a young apprentice, and had taken him years to complete; above all, that it was the product of early hours stolen from sleep, and had never robbed, his professional duties of their proper share of attention. They ought to keep it, however, and to value it too. Not for the sake of any surpassing excellence in the portraitures of birds with which it was filled; for, although the good old man was so proud of the "real birds," which he used to observe it contained, yet they were embodied to the eye somewhat in Chinese taste, as clearly as I can remember: rather with exactitude of pencillings and shades, than with skill in the "drawing" or attitude of the bird, or observance of rules of perspective, or "fore-shortening," or any of the intricacies of art. But the heart—the heart of the good man whose hand performed these curious and laborious limnings—should stamp a precious value on the book that contained them.

Nor was it a mere unmeaning hobby, this love of the feathered tribe which was so strong in the benevolent alderman. He was another Gilbert White in diligence of observation on their habits in the woods and fields, and on the heath and the moor. In his rural rides as a surgeon, he was ever learning some fact relative to their economy, and he most diligently chronicled it. And at the return of the season, he was as punctually periodical as the fall of the leaf in acquainting his friendly circle with his impressions relative to the severity or the openness of the ensuing winter, from his observations on the feathered tribe. Many of these "prognostications," as some people called them, although he never assumed the character of a prophet himself, were registered in the Stamford Mercury, the long-established and ably-conducted medium of information for the extensive though thinly-peopled district of Lincolnshire; and they so seldom failed to be realised, that the ornithological surgeon was often complimented on his prophecies. "Nay," he would reply, "I am no prophet: I only go by Nature's books: you may do the same, if you'll read them."

Was it his diligent and loving perusal of these books which imbued him with that never-failing zeal to relieve the miserable? was it by his continued drinking of the lessons of bounty and care discoverable in those books, that kept open, to his latest day, the sluices of his beneficent heart,—so that the icy influences of the world never froze them up,—but they were left to well out goodness, and tenderness, and pity, for the poor, and hungry, and sick, and miserable, to the end of his life?

One cannot suppress a persuasion of this kind; and it seems next to impossible but that Gilbert White must have gladdened the poor of his "Selborne," to the very extent of his means, and, perhaps, sometimes beyond it,—secretly, humbly, and unobtrusively,—while his amiable mind was displaying so simply and charmingly, in that correspondence with Tennant and Barrington, its devoted love and admiration of the characters in "Nature's books." This thought may be but a prejudice of the imagination; but such prejudices are less criminal than the prejudices of the judgment or understanding, and one feels unwilling to have them removed in a case like this: we have, alas! too many examples of evil contradictions in the characters we thirst to love,—and our worship even of the noblest intelligences,—such as Bacon,—is too often checked by them.

In the devoted reader of "Nature's books," however, of whom we are immediately speaking, there was a delightful harmony of character. "I cannot pay you, yet, Mr. ——,"—said a poor woman to him, as I walked by his side, along the High Street of St. Botolph's parish, listening to his autumnal chronicle,—"I cannot pay you yet, sir, for my husband is out of work."—"Pr'ythee, never mind, woman," replied the good man. "Make thyself easy, and get that poor boy a pair of shoes, before thou pays me!"—"God bless you, sir!" replied the poor woman, with her ragged and shoeless lad, and dropped a courtesy, while the grateful tear rolled down her cheek. I looked, with an impulse of admiration, at the face of the good alderman, as we passed along, and the tears were coursing each other adown his face likewise!

And how often have I heard,—what, indeed, well-nigh every citizen of old Lincoln had either heard, or witnessed,—of his bounteous relief of famishing and clotheless families he was called to attend during the sickness of a child or father, or the mother's agony of Nature. One thought presents itself painfully: it is, that while he manifested so true a fraternity with man, and lived a life of so much private, unobtrusive blessing,—he was so frequently the victim of encroaching and designing knaves. His ready loans of money, in his wealthiest days, to needy tradesmen, were often punctually and honestly returned; but he was too often victimised. And there is one image now crosses me, very legibly,—that used to haunt and pester the good-hearted man, even up to the period of his straitness,—ever goading him with some plea of difficulty, and essaying to squeeze out of him another sum, under the unprincipled name of a loan. He was a "limb of the law," who had been "done up" in his profession, for his want of honesty. And yet I have some misgivings whether that human being were so morally culpable as his life of shuffle, and deceit, and meanness, would lead one to think; for I remember how often I noticed the large indentation across his bald head, caused by some accident, in which the bone of the skull had been bent or broken, and, consequently, the brain injured. His career is at an end, however; and whatever might be the true solution of the problem of his idiosyncrasy, one cannot help feeling a regret that the best and finest natures should so often, in this world, become a prey to the worst,—as in the case of this vile practiser, who often boasted over his brandy, in the presence of some base associate, that he had gulled the alderman again!——

Memory calls up another form less distinctly, since it belonged to one who was much nearer the end of his course; and the impression of his identity depends more on what others said of him than on any thing like personal or intimate acquaintance with his character. From some unskilfulness of speech, or want of grace in outward demeanour, or some other mark that the world thought "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric," he had gained the odd, singular, and eccentric, but very distinctive soubriquet of Alderman Lob. He was a bulky sort of man externally, talked thick, yet talked a great deal; was laid up with the gout often, and passed his closing years totally within doors as an invalid: but many a poverty-stricken habitant of Lincoln found weekly relief at his door; and more than one aged and infirm creature prayed for the lengthening out of his life, in the fear they would be left destitute, or be compelled to go into the workhouse, when they could no longer depend on his weekly charity.——

The master-spirit of that old guild, though too mentally acute, and too successful in the acquirement of wealth to leave room for the world to term him